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Re: Reaganomics metastatis
I might have said it differently than GRG55, but he has it right. Reagan and Thatcher became icons, symbols for a set of beliefs about the world and how one can (or should) live in the world.
The problem with these beliefs is not that they are (were) based on good or bad ideas. The danger arises when they become ideology, a comprehensive, even totalizing, set of beliefs that becomes a way of viewing the world. The ideologue is blind to the shadings of difference that could have been observed in the stew of money, enterprise, investments, and politics (including government and regulation) that make up the economy. Oblivious to signals that would otherwise alarm, he careens recklessly along until he meets with disaster.
This process normally occurs with the comforting knowledge that your beliefs are voiced by an articulate and attractive spokesperson (Reagan or Thatcher) and echoed by a myriad of other voices (e.g., media). None of this is new. See Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, first published in 1847, for an entertaining account of previous financial debacles.
I might have said it differently than GRG55, but he has it right. Reagan and Thatcher became icons, symbols for a set of beliefs about the world and how one can (or should) live in the world.
The problem with these beliefs is not that they are (were) based on good or bad ideas. The danger arises when they become ideology, a comprehensive, even totalizing, set of beliefs that becomes a way of viewing the world. The ideologue is blind to the shadings of difference that could have been observed in the stew of money, enterprise, investments, and politics (including government and regulation) that make up the economy. Oblivious to signals that would otherwise alarm, he careens recklessly along until he meets with disaster.
This process normally occurs with the comforting knowledge that your beliefs are voiced by an articulate and attractive spokesperson (Reagan or Thatcher) and echoed by a myriad of other voices (e.g., media). None of this is new. See Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, first published in 1847, for an entertaining account of previous financial debacles.
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